I kinda dislike them. Playable pandaren lacks any lore after they join they faction, and aside for "we are with you" dont really seem to fit. The models are meh at best, with females being super kawaii, and males looking like slighty mentally handcapped. Im also really tired with this entire "new age" setting with pandas spewing bullshit like:
"Family friends food these are what matters most", "the worlds is your teacher", and so on. Oh also shado-pan are band of arogant assholes who think they are better then us, but then need our help to deal with pretty much everything.

I'd say I need to separate parts:
-dual-faction - success
-pandaren as a race - neutral, their popularity isn't that big, in terms of % played at max level there's more then gnomes or goblins as a whole, but on faction level each side is the least played at max level
-lore - total failure - I am sorry, but look at them, they appeared nowhere outside pandaria, at this rate they'll be like the draenei. Of course there's still time, but in the rebellion thing the pandaren leaders are not even mentioned. Look at Vol'jin's speech for example, he talks about blood elves, forsaken and goblins besides the 3 already present (orcs, trolls, tauren)... so, no pandaren even mentioned? Sure, Chen is there, but he's not the pandaren leader. If they wanted to make him such, they should have. On the Alliance side again, I doubt they'll be introduced in the High King quests too, we shall see.
To add, there's also a bunch of jokes and stereotypes in their story which just makes them fully look at a joke race. This is what I originally complained about, not that pandaren as an idea are a joke race, but I didn't trust Blizzard to make lore that doesn't make them look like a joke... and I feel I was right.

I kinda dislike them. Playable pandaren lacks any lore after they join they faction, and aside for "we are with you" dont really seem to fit. The models are meh at best, with females being super kawaii, and males looking like slighty mentally handcapped. Im also really tired with this entire "new age" setting with pandas spewing bullshit like:
"Family friends food these are what matters most", "the worlds is your teacher", and so on. Oh also shado-pan are band of arogant assholes who think they are better then us, but then need our help to deal with pretty much everything.

Their models, textures, animations, attention to detail and all are mostly great.

The biggest problems with the Pandaren model I found are both with the females:
The tail-less female Pandaren. When you're running, the tail-stub looks really weid, right between the axes of the legs.

And the female Pandaren voice is just terrible imo. Terrible in general and really doesn't fit the model.

I like their lore somewhat (not hugely enthusiastic about it, but it's ok) and history etc. I think they should be able to roll Druids. They supposedly are a really old race and might have known the Tauren, Night Elves (pre-Druidism) and Trolls and imo they have a strong connection to nature. It would fit their mentality, and it would fit into their history. They developed Monks as a weapon-less "class" to fight of the Mogu. Druids, the shapeshiftig aspect especially, would make sense as well. Give them Druids, remove Priests, makes more sense imo. But too late for that.

In terms of game mechanics, also nice, finally a race the factions share, good precedent. As much as I love the Blood Elves I think High Elves would make sense for the Alliance as wel, they have started to repopulate somewhat and grew importance. They could be a playable race on both sides, with a different flavor, like the Pandaren. But what race to give the Horde in exchange... Or just have the Blood Elf and High Elf races "merge" again. The Blood Elves have the rekindled Sunwell as a power source since BC now, the two races should be able to come to terms and get together again. Although recent story events seem to contradict...

The Worgen also did good in this respect, they opened the door for "two races in one" races, really like the concept.

I also think the Pandaren (playable) story is really lacking post-Wandering Isle, on either side. Yeah, e.g. the Goblins also didn't feature prominently but they kept showing up in the world, with new Horde-Goblin-built outposts etc.

I still really dislike the Monk being playable by *all* races (k, nearly all, not Worgen/Goblins). They always kept going on that playble classes fit the race and are a profession that's been practiced by a high amount of people of this race. That's why we had no Blood Elf Warriors for a long time, or Orc Mages etc. It didn't make sense storywise. But suddenly *poof* The Monk is nearly the equivalent of the Warrior i.e., every race has a ton of Monks?
And at the same time, the Pandaren, who brought Monks to both factions, to every race, have little to no footprint in either faction?

I find the neutrality aspect of this race to be particularly interesting. It could open up some interesting choices on what races you could add from the vast pool that exists in WarCraft lore. It prevents the game from being completely black and white in regards to what choices you wish to make for your character, which is a nice plus. Besides, Blizzard has simply proven to be unable to balance out the development between both factions (Goblin vs Worgen in Cataclysm comes to mind), so at least the neutrality aspect makes the argument about faction favouritism pretty pointless, which the community and Blizzard need to get away from.

Nope, going to be completely forgotten and irrelevant in the very next expac. So far, they have had very little impact anywhere outside pandaland.

Depends if Blizzard have learned their lesson from the draenei and worgen. They don't need to be thrown into every single plot hook, but there are plenty of ways they can keep relevance and remind us that they're still there.

Depends if Blizzard have learned their lesson from the draenei and worgen. They don't need to be thrown into every single plot hook, but there are plenty of ways they can keep relevance and remind us that they're still there.

Oh i can imagine that.A final battle against forces of burning legion. Azeroth greatest, united for a first time, ready to face ultimate peril.
LolPanda: Did someone ordered retarded lolbrew joke ?
And everyone was like: LOL
and demons were like: LOL
And pandas were like LOL
You know i think pandaren should stick to pandaria.

They worked from Blizzards point of view. Let me explain. Everyone I know who plays a panda chose that race to level. Once they hit 90 they race change. Now I know this isn't true across the board but with enough people doing this it's a huge increase in revenue from race changes which helps their bottom line every quarter.

And I mean more than in just terms of the race itself. They introduced the "bi-faction" system and are Warcraft's first neutral race, something a lot of us never thought Blizzard would go for.

What do you think? Did it work out? Do you want to see more neutral races in the future, or go back to unique races for each side?

As NPC, yes. I think they were very well done. As a playable race? No. I do not think they were well done. In fact, I think it is an entire mess.

In mine opinion, making it playable broke two key features. One was in WOW each faction had it own's races. I would have preferred they kept with this philosophy. Secondly the Panderens does not seems to fit in with the old faction's war.

In MoP, I get the impression they not warlike. They did not even have a standing army in the same sense as the Horde and Alliance. They just had a very small, specialized forces for watching over the Sha. Secondly, they never fought each other. In all the races I have played, I have fought against members of my own race. Now all of a sudden, Panderens vs Panderens.

So the implementation by Blizzards just went against the culture of the Panderens that was introduced to me by Blizzards themselves.

As a player race? Whatever, really doesn't matter to me. Dealing with them as npcs in questing? I have absolutely hated every moment. I hate their dialogue and VOs. I don't like the atmosphere of MoP and Pandaria in general. Kun'Lai really aggravated me. I got so sick of helping panda farmers.